Faridoon Shahryar's Blog

Monday, June 29, 2015

Truth has turned into a Lie, In this game of one upmanship Aren't we deceiving ourselves; The business of silence Can be counter productive, When the bloodshod eyes Are hell bent on revenge Maybe from their own weaknesses, The wind knives through The trembling breathlessness Sleepless eyes blinded by tiredness Darkness digs its claws Deeper into an abyss of nothingness Eyes pierce into the Oasis of tepid brightness When the road seems endless but its not, A flicker of hope Lights up in a heart Determined to beat on, When the Real stops being daunting, The imagination takes over, The Journey has just begun...

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Each time the plane hits violent turbulence, all sorts of prayers dance in the mind and effortlessly get inscribed on the lips. Today was one such day when I encountered air turbulence twice. As the Jet Airways flight descended into the Colombo airport early morning and then the Sri Lankan Airlines flight braved through a heavy stretch of clouds as the Plane entered the Kuala Lumpur air space. It seems miraculous how the aircraft cruises through all the madness hung up in the air and how people have the sense to maintain calmness.

I haven't slept a wink since the last 24 hours and once I'm done with writing this piece (eyes are half shut already) I'll be gone. I along with a friend went to China Town. There wasn't much exciting although the architecture was very interesting.

IIFA weekend is starting from tomorrow. I hope we can do some magic. Hopefully logistical support will be. Goodbye for now. My worn out eyes can't hold back any more. Good bye and Good night.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

“Box
Office insures your next film, not the next critical acclaim”:Amitabh Bachchan

By Faridoon Shahryar

“Yash
Chopra was in love with love and it showed it in everything that he did,” said
global superstar Amitabh Bachchan in ab exclusive video interview with Faridoon Shahryar. Fresh from the
glorious response to his performance in Piku,
Mr Bachchan opens up on reasons why he lays more importance to Box Office as
compared with critical acclaim. He also shares rare insight on genius directors
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Manmohan Desai, Prakash Mehra, Yash Chopra and Hrishikesh
Mukherji.

Your
performance in Piku was amazingly
entertaining. How does it feel that everyone is unanimously appreciating your
act?

Thank you so much, first of all, for your kind
words. I am very happy to hear that! Any artist is always happy to hear some
kind of compliment which endorses the work that he has done. I am satisfied not
just with the kind of work that we did but also the kind of appreciation that
it has been garnering in all parts of the world. It is very rare that a film
which is so simple and has appreciation from every section of the society, gets
critically acclaimed and yet does commercially so well! And the credit goes to
the audiences and people who have thronged the theatres and reaffirmed our
faith in them. And they have given us a lot of impetus tocontinue making films like these!

What is
more important to you – critical acclaim or box office?

There has to be a selfish way to look at it. If
I look at it selfishly, then I’ll probably say, ‘I hope I am critically
acclaimed and I hope I hit the box office as well.’ I think that’s a dream kind
of a project that everybody wants. I am particularly pleased about say a film
like Piku because we got a bit of
both. But there are times when the criticism you face is very severe and yet
your box office results are quite the opposite. I guess the box office insures
your next film, maybe not the next critical acclaim.

Khwaja Ahmad
Abbas – the writer or director?

The Human Being! We called him ‘mamu jaan’. He
was an exceptional human being, much bigger than his status as a writer or a
director. He had certain principles in his life. And it’s very difficult to
maintain those principles. It’s tough having certain beliefs about what life
should be, about what your mind should be, how you want to
conduct your society and then translate that into a film and your writing. And
yet, never make a compromise. That’s incredible! And he had so much respect. He
was in hospital and he never ever told anyone that he’s getting admitted. And
he never asked for any help because that’s the way his life was. And he sold the rights of his films to pay his hospital
bills for a pittance. If anyone would have offered to help, he would have
refused. When we were shooting Saat
Hindustani for example, he insisted that we all should travel together. So
we travelled by 3rd class in a train. We went walking whenever needed. We stayed in government circuit houses
which were not so well equipped. The whole unit would sleep on the floor –
cameraman, spot boys, artists and Abbas saab! There was no electricity and he
used to burn a ‘laalten’ and he used to write the whole night to prepare for
the next day’s shoot. Where do you find people like that anymore?

Whenever Manmohan Desai came up with a concept,
we all thought it was madness. He was wild in his thinking. And we haven’t
produced another Manmohan Desai. His extreme thought process was initially
laughable. But in the end he was the one who was laughing and we were all
wondering, ‘How did that happen?’ For instance, a film like Amar Akbar Anthony starts with a scene
of three guys lying next to each other and a mother receiving blood from one
bottle! There are three pipes, attached to the three brothers. It’s beyond any
kind of medical practitioning! We used to tell him, ‘Mann, this doesn’t happen.
You can’t do this.’ But he’ll retort, ‘Just shut up, yaar. Dekh kya hota hai!’
And when the film released, there was a massive applause in the beginning
scene!Prakash Mehra had a great story and music sense.
His writing was very good. He was quite the opposite of Manmohan Desai.
Manmohan Desai used to believe in larger-than-life kind of cinema. Prakash ji
was very simple and his stories were very powerful. He’d tell me, ‘Kahin bhi
khade ho jao aur bolna shuru kar do.’ He’ll then place a simple camera and
tell, ‘Jahan ruk jao wahaan bata dena.’ Then he’ll take the shot and
then re-take in a different angle and that’s it. The scene is done. He never
bothered about extravagant sets. The most extravagant sets he ever made was in Namak Halaal for the song Pag Ghungroo. He was very upset about
the fact that he had to put up the set.

Yash Chopra excelled in romance and its finer
points. He was in love with love and it showed it in everything that he did –
the way he used to choose the subjects, the actors, the way he used to shoot
the scenes. We used to tease him while he was doing Deewaar which was a very aggressive, rough kind of a film and
totally away from anything romantic. But even in Deewaar, he took a close up of mine and then panned the shot
to a flower that was lying next to me! And we used to say, ‘Aap bhool nahin
sakte na romance ko.’

Hrishikesh Mukherjee trod the centre path – his
films were neither too artistic nor too commercial. And it was very difficult
to do so. Many people who saw Piku
stated that it reminded them of Hrishikesh Mukherjee kind of films. He came
from Bimal Roy’s school – he was his editor and assistant. And he was not just
a brilliant director but a brilliant editor as well. If some artist, for instance, was late, he would
take the shots of those actors present first. Then he’d shoot the portions of
the artist who was late. We would ask him, ‘Hrishi da, what are you doing?’ But
he’d shut us up! He knew how he is going to edit that particular scene. He
would then join the scene so seamlessly that viewers would presume that all the
actors were present at the set at the same time!